


Green and Ginger and Glowing All Over

by ienablu



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ienablu/pseuds/ienablu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ninety-nine miles out of New York, Bruce's car breaks down. A redheaded hitchhiker fixes it, then calls shotgun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green and Ginger and Glowing All Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Krilymcc (KristiLynn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KristiLynn/gifts).



> Originally posted [here](http://xover-exchange.livejournal.com/92701.html). Set after 5.09 in Doctor Who, and post-movie for Avengers. Thanks to playpraydie for the beta and idea bouncing.

His car breaks down four miles past Allentown, Pennsylvania. He manages to pull over to a wide shoulder, and he watches as cars drive past, knowing that it will be a long time before anybody pulls over to help him. A brief look under the hood shows that Tony has spent a considerable amount of time under the hood, and Bruce has no idea what the problem could be. He could head back to Allentown, where there are undoubtedly a few car repair shops where someone could make an educated guess on what needs to be fixed, but he is not thrilled with the idea of the hour long walk it would take.

He doesn't have a cell phone on him, but he doesn't doubt that there would be a cell phone in the car, if he were to look for it. He could call Tony, ask him what exactly he did, but he would really rather not call Tony. He had enjoyed the candy land of Stark Tower's R&D floors, and appreciated residing with someone who understood his off-balance sleep schedule while entranced in research, but he's not in a habit of staying stationary, especially not with the army swarming New York to help clean up after the Chitauri Invasion.

Pepper had understood, and when he had snuck down to Tony's garage at half-past five in the morning, she had been there, in front of the least flashy of Tony's cars (a simple silver Prius, with a rather funny story behind its acquisition, that changed every time Tony talked about it), with the keys in one hand and a duffel bag in the other.

Pepper had an oddly omniscient air to her, Bruce thought, and he sees the same in the redheaded hitchhiker who offers to fix his car.

Bruce doesn't trust her -- she had approached him, offering to fix whatever was wrong with the car. Bruce is not an engineer or mechanical minded genius like Tony, but very few people are, and he doesn’t guess a lot of them would hitchhike. But she went under the hood, he heard a faint buzzing sound, and then she shut the hood, and called shotgun.

He doesn't trust her, he shouldn't let her come along with him, but there's something so expecting of her, so effortless, like the thought hadn't crossed her mind that she wouldn't be able to help him.

Honestly, though, with all the renewed publicity over the Other Guy, and the possibility he'll be recognized, he could use someone who can effortlessly problem solve.

He's not surprised -- suspicious, but not surprised -- when his car starts back up.

+

"My name is Amy, by the way," she says, half an hour later, voice raised over the rush of her open window.

"Bruce." After a long beat of silence, he asks, "Where are you headed?"

"I was supposed to go to Rio de Janeiro," she replies, with an annoyed air that shows this is not an infrequent declaration, "but the -- guy I was traveling with, he got a bit mixed up, and so now we're meeting at Rio Grande City."

Bruce nods. Wants to mention that he's spent time in Rio, but doesn't.

"And you? How long have I got before I have to find a new car to ride in?"

Bruce isn't sure -- isn't sure where or how far he's going, isn't sure how long he'll manage before he just wants to be by himself again. "We'll see," is all he replies.

+

They've just entered Maryland, going south on I-81, when Bruce glances down at the clock on the dashboard and sees it's nearing noon. He hasn't had anything to eat since he was leaving New York, since Pepper had been considerate enough to leave a protein bar in his duffel bag.

"Do you have any dietary restrictions?" he asks a stirring Amy to his side.

She stretches, motion cramped in the Prius, before yawning as she says, "As long as it's from this planet, I don't really care."

Bruce just nods, and takes the next exit off the highway, sure there will be some fast-food restaurant within a minute's drive. He glances to his side, at Amy. He won’t deny that he's curious about her -- it's the scientist in him, maybe, or just the offhand oddity of her. But he's spent enough of his time on the run as a hitchhiker, and he knows that what seem like basic questions to the driver can be rather difficult to answer.

("What's your story," a driver had asked, once. Bruce didn't know how to tell him "A science experiment went wrong and now when I get angry I turn into a giant green monster," especially considering he wasn't that fluent in Spanish.)

Instead, he just pulls into the drive-thru of the nearest fast food joint and asks what she wants.

+

Over a large order of fries and an order of Chicken McNuggets shaped like dinosaurs, Amy starts talking. Her full name is Amelia Pond. She was raised but not born in Leadworth. For the past two weeks she's been traveling with a self-described man man in a box, who is 900 years old and infinitely wise and yet unable to tell different _Rio_ s apart.

They're back on the highway, windows rolled down, the radio turned on low, and Bruce feels oddly relaxed. "I'm on the run from the army," Bruce says, breezily. "I spent some time in Rio."

"Texas or Brazil?"

"Brazil."

"What was the weather like?" she asks, sounding jealous.

"The weather was nice," he replies. "A bit too warm for my tastes, at times, but it was nice."

Amy doesn't comment on him being on the run from the army (doesn't ask about him being on the run, either), and instead launches into a diatribe about growing up in Leadworth, the rainy weather in Leadworth, the rainy weather everywhere _around_ Leadworth. She talks about how she and Jeff and Rory all hated the weather, and they all wanted to go somewhere warm, and a few years ago all decided to go to Rio. Only she's getting the wrong Rio, and Jeff now has a job with a top-secret government facility and probably won't get to take a holiday anytime soon.

"And Rory?"

"Who?"

+

The glove box starts ringing in the middle of Virginia.

Amy starts from her half-doze, and watches the glove box, until the ringing stops. Then she turns to Bruce, and frowns. "Was there a mobile in there, or...?"

Even though he rarely touched it, it's still Tony's car, and Bruce isn't entirely certain what he may or may not have done with the glove box.

It rings again, five minutes later.

“Are you going to be answering that, anytime soon?” Amy asks, once more staring in the direction of the ringing.

“I’m not planning on it,” Bruce says, not looking towards the glovebox, not thinking about it. It makes him feel chased, feel _hunted_ , and he does his best to put it out of mind. It’s just Tony, he thinks, keeping his breathing even. Just Tony, wondering where he is, it’s not a threat. His grip is tight on the wheel, and he focuses on the the scant traffic around him, and the evenness of his breathing.

The next time it starts, Amy opens up and starts going through the glove box. She flips open the phone, and turns it off, and throws it back into the glovebox. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding very sorry.

Bruce gives her a half-smile. “Don’t be.”

+

Two hours into Tennessee, the setting sun is making Amy’s red hair glow, and Bruce starts looking into motel.

He has attained an eye for motels, finding the cheap ones that don't rent by the hour, and he pulls up to the office of one. Then he turns around in his seat, and gets the duffel bag from behind him. When getting out his protein bar twelve hours prior, he had found a roll of money that Pepper had graciously lent, and he pulls a few twenties out of the roll.

Amy looks guilty, when he looks up at her. "I don't have any money."

"I figured," Bruce says, and that's all he says, as he gets out of the car, and heads to the office. He gets one room, two beds.

Amy isn't in the car when he goes back for his duffel bag-- her own bright red backpack gone-- and he realizes he probably should have asked if she wanted the bed, instead of paying for it when the answer was apparently no.

It's a small loss, though, and he goes into the room, both keys in his pocket, and he sets his bag down, and then heads to the bathroom.

When he comes back out, he sees Amy coming into the room, her arms loaded with bags and bags of chips, and two bottles of Coke.

Bruce just stares at her, as she goes to the other bed, and drops all the chips and one Coke bottle on it.

"I dropped that one on my way over," Amy says, nodding down at the Coke bottle. She twists open the top of the other, and takes a swig out of it, then hands it over.

Bruce takes it, and takes a sip from it, and asks, "How exactly did you get in here?" He doesn't ask how redheads seem to have a tendency to sneak up on him. Better not to know the answer, he thinks, with a wry smile.

Amy looks guilty, which makes Bruce even more suspicious than he was when they first started out.

"I won't be angry with you," Bruce says, as he sits down on his own bed, and starts untying his shoes, then pulling them off. It's not a lie, hopefully. "I just want to know how you got in here, and how you fixed the car."

In response, Amy just reaches into her worn leather jacket, and pulls out an object. "It's a sonic screwdriver," she says.

Bruce eyes the metallic contraption. "What does it do?"

"Sonic... screwdriver... things," Amy says, not sounding too sure of herself. "I don't know, the Doctor uses it when he needs something done, and it usually works for him."

Bruce nods. Then asks, "Can I see it?"

"Catch," she replies, before tossing it underhand to him.

Bruce refrains from saying that he doesn't like things thrown at him, and instead just takes it, and starts examining it.

"Careful," she says, as he pushes a button on the bottom, which makes the top section pop up. "The Doctor told me not to use it unless I really needed to."

"And you really needed thirteen bags of chips?" he asks, as he starts peering at it from different angles. His talents lie in biology and chemistry and biochemistry, mechanics are more Tony’s area of expertise.

"Well, I figure, you're buying the rooms and the petrol and the meals, the least I could do is get the snacks."

Bruce really isn’t one for junk food, but he grabs a bag of Fritos anyways.

+

They get a late start, the next morning, but given how Bruce had heard Amy quietly sobbing the night before, he waits patiently as she gets ready.

+

The afternoon passes pleasantly, with them stopping for barbecue for lunch, playing word games with the passing license plate letters, and Amy yelling at too-aggressive drivers. Bruce turns LAS into _heliopause_ , and doesn’t question when Amy turns it into _Aplans_ , or how her gaze goes distant afterwards.

+

As they’re passing Tuscaloosa, a phone starts ringing in the back of the car.

Amy twists around, and starts rummaging around. “I think it’s under my seat,” she says, voice muffled.

He glances over, and sees only the denim of her skirt.

“Could you please sit up straight?” he asks, mildly, eyes back on the road. “I’d really rather not get pulled over.”

She pulls herself back up so she’s sitting straight, a ringing cell phone in her hand. “Mind if I answer this, and tell whoever is calling--”

“Don’t tell me,” Bruce tells her, preparing himself to tune the conversation out -- judging from the day he’s known her, Bruce gets the feeling a conversation between Amy and Tony would quickly go from bad to terrifying.

“Hello, this is Amy Pond speaking,” she says.

Bruce is watching the rhythmic passing of the white lane markers, when he hears Amy continue, “Oh, Doctor. I wasn’t expecting you to call. How did you find us?” 

Like a switch, he’s in fight-or-flight mode, his heart racing, his blood pumping; he’s cramped alone in a car being tracked and hunted and the Other Guy wants to get _out_.

Bruce pulls over onto the shoulder, and puts the car into park. “Get out,” he tells her, voice shaky. She doesn’t move, just looks startled, and when he repeats, “Get out,” his voice is a register lower. His skin feels too tight, his body too small.

She gets out.

+

It takes two miles for him to cool down and pull over onto the shoulder.

The average walking speed of an adult is just over three miles, and so he expects to see her in twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes come and pass, then thirty, then forty.

After an hour, he slowly moves back into the driver’s seat, but it takes another ten for him to start the car and drive off.

+

A guilty hour later, he sees Amy waving at him on the shoulder of the road.

He pulls over, and puts on his emergency lights, and waits.

Amy is rushing towards him -- no longer in the bright red shirt and denim skirt, but a teal shirt and black shorts -- with a tall, lanky man trailing behind.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as Amy comes to stop in front of him. He’s glad that at least she’s not armed, as he continues, “That was mean.”

Amy waves him off. “Ah, don’t worry about it, I’m just here for my sack.” She walks past him, then, and goes to the back seat, grabs her bag, and heads back to her original spot before him. “I’m leaving you the crisps,” she says.

“Thank you,” Bruce says. There are still a few protein bars left, but he could use the snack.

The tall, lanky man has caught up to them now, and Amy steps back to his side, and introduces, “Bruce, this is the Doctor. Doctor, Bruce.”

“Dr. Banner, good to see you again,” the Doctor says.

Bruce suppresses the faint stirrings of panic, and asks, “Do I know you?”

“Oh, sorry, not yet,” he says, sounding apologetic. “Time travel can be tricky, sometimes.”

Bruce has seen stranger.

“Sometimes?” Amy repeats. “Is there a time when you’re _not_ rubbish at it?”

“It could have been worse,” the Doctor mutters, a touch petulant.

Amy snorts at that, then turns back to Bruce. “We’re heading to Arcadia, care to come with?”

“I thought you were going to Rio.”

“Been there, done that, the weather was lovely, we’re going to Arcadia now.” To the Doctor, she adds, “A trip for a trip sounds fair, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe later,” Bruce replies, though he gets the feeling that he’s already accepted the offer, at some point in the future.

The Doctor beams at him, and says, “I’ll be sure to take you up on that.”

Bruce watches them walk off, back the way they came, bickering, and decides that he will worry about it later. For now, he wants to see if the weather in Rio has improved any.


End file.
